The Dermal Highway
' ' "If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the Universe." '--Carl Sagan' A comprehensive encyclopedia regarding the denizens, creatures, worlds, and stories of the fictional multi-verse known as The Dermal Highway. Nearly three decades in the making, the Dermal Highway is based on the creative writings and interactive-fictions of canth?, known colloquially as The Woman. In its current incarnation, it exists as the in-character channel #Raptor_Corps and the out-of-character channel #The_Highway on the IRC server DarkMyst Complete with a unique system called the Prism, which is a custom D10 approach to conflict resolution, the 'I Ching of ass-kicking', as it has come to be called, this Meta-setting has attracted many creative minds to participate in stories on, in, under, and about the the Skin of GOD. What is this game about? "I wish...that I could '''really' tell you...'' of all the things that happened to me... and all that I have seen. A world full of people, their hearts full of joy... ...cities of light with no fear of war... ...thousands of creatures with happier lives ...and dreams of a future where they have no need to hate...no need to hide... ...no need to lie." ''-Genesis 'Keep It Dark' Players usually come into our channel seeking information on character creation, system, and sheets. Considering the large number of other RPG channels who have such things, this is no surprise. Dermal Highway is not, however, one of them. In her time on mIRC, The Woman has come to the conclusion that relying on a sheeted system results in a mindset not desired by those who play here, specifically one that sees character sheet statistics as entitlements to an outcome instead of as guidelines to an outcome. If you, dear Reader, have come here looking to find a game system you can rape, you will not find it. If you, dear Reader, have come here seeking a game in which you can min/max a character and make all your personal fantasies of power and domination come to fruition, you will not find it. ''"Are there things about the Universe that will always be beyond our grasp? Are there things about the Universe that are ungraspable?" ''--Richard Dawkins'' The Prism is a motherfucker, and it is the final arbiter of outcomes, no matter what your character's skill level. Just like non-smokers can get lung cancer, expert marksmen can miss. Just like a water-boy can become a basketball hero, a beginner can kill the Boss Monster with a single lucky shot.. “What is this game about?” This is the single most frequent question we get asked by potential players when they come into our mirc channel. In the past, I have asked my players to write ‘testimonials’ about the Dermal Highway, and what it’s about, so it’s only fair that I, as the storyteller of the channel, do the same. Still, I am challenged to express myself about it. When I think of it, it spreads out across the surface of my mind like duck weed. Like the family LemnaeoideaI, within the ecology of RPG's, this game is a taxonomic mystery. I end up speaking about it in either single snippets, such as the lion's share of the entries in this Wiki, or in the most broad and encompassing terms. Literally... "I'm this guy standing on a planet...and really I'm just a speck. ...Just a speck... Compared with a star, the planet is just another speck. To think about all of this... '' ''To think about the vast emptiness of space... And billions and billions of stars... Billions and billions of specks..."' -- Bill Nye the Science Guy This channel is about The Story. The Story that you, and I, as participants in the Story, tell about The Story. ''"But the brain does more than just recollect, it intercompares, it synthesizes, analyzes. It generates abstractions. The simplest thought, like the concept of the number '1' has an elaborate logical underpinning. The brain has its own language for testing the structure and consistancy of the world." -- Carl Sagan In order to play with us, you need to know how to write at at least high school graduate level. You must know how to create a Narrative for yourself in order to play here. We use advanced storytelling techniques here. Plays on words, Narrative monologues, internal dialogue, scenes without true beginning or end, or even seeming any direction, are all common occurances within the experience of this game and commonly more than two or three sessions may pass before a recognizable story emerges. If you do not know what these techniques are, or how to use them, playing in this channel may not be an option for you. We are not vicious critics, and don't expect you to be Shakespeare. We merely ask that you be literate enough to understand the basics of characterization and narrative and not expect us to educate you. We use third person omniscient, past tense, and expect new players to adopt this Voice for consistancy. Settings for the game vary wildly, from places that are uniquely Dermal Highway, such as Arcodia, to Earth settings which can take on any history you like. Got a World of Darkness character you are particularly fond of? Begin a Narrative that describes that individual's world and insert your character into The Story through that Narrative. Draw us in and entice us to add to your Narrative, and through the intermingling Story that is created, the Dermal Highway that is found everywhere will become apparent over time. GOD is everywhere, everything, happening at the same time, at the same time, a larger, Universal Reality of which we are all a part. A literary reality where Is ''is a noun, and ''Being is a Transitive Verb. GOD is an acronym and a participle. The stories we tell are sometimes of ordinary people who encounter the extraordinary, sometimes of extraordinary people encountering the ordinary. All of them have significance, if not relevance. All of them CAN happen, and therefore HAVE to happen for GOD to survive. "Matter flows from place to place and momentarily comes together to be you. '' ''Some people find that thought disturbing. I find the reality thrilling." --Richard Dawkins The Dermal Community '''"This is the world we live in...and these are the hands we're given...use them and let's start trying to make it a place worth living in..."' '-'''Genesis Land of Confusion' Ostensibly, the game is about the activities of A.N.S.W.E.R. in the building and defense of the Dermal Community. Ideally, the Dermal Community would consist of any and all sentient beings inside the organism of GOD itself. However, Reality deviates from the Ideal with depressing regularity. The Dermal Community is a small collective of colonies scattered throughout the tissues of the the YESBeast whose colonists all came from worlds ultimately destroyed by the phenomenon that can be be universally described as The Military-Industrial Complex, a situation inevitably formed once a cellular bloc has been corrupted by the advancing decay of the Rude. Once this entity, identified as in DimIre language as Morphord's Spear, is established, its consolidated power creates a reality climate in which only it can survive, choking out all other systems until a collapse of available resources occurs. Once this happens, the world become torn by endemic inequality, war, famine, and pestilence, which relegates the entire world's collective imagination to generating a Zeitgeist that envisions the '' '' ruthless, pitiless struggle to survive, where all that matters is acquiring enough for you and yours to survive and that this is the way it has always been, indeed the way it ''should always be. What follows is a coloring of all that proceeds from it with bitterness, diminishing the world's biomass through over-harvesting, habitat destruction, theft, and waste, til the very Parama becomes diseased and buckshot with greed, selfishness, and paranoia. Eventually, a critical mass is reached within the Parama, the outer Phitobiotic membranes of the world become compromised, and holes open into any interconnecting Parama, and the whole process begins anew. In this fashion, whole blocs can be devoured. A.N.S.W.E.R. was formed to both gather and protect survivors of such destruction, either escorting them to pre-existing colonies, or helping them form new ones of their own in tissues suited to their survival. The Dermal Community exists sprung from the hope that these survivors can learn from the mistakes made on their homeworlds, and given a new chance and a fresh start, create communities that do not repeat those mistakes, and discover novel ways to achieve NO suppression with their empowerment. Mens sana in corpore sano in muneris ut a pacis animus. - '' ''A sound mind in a sound body in service to a peaceful soul.